The Accidental Empress

The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe's most powerful ruling family....

I can't recommend it.

The story has interesting parts, esp. if you're fascinated by Sisi - proven by the fact that I made it trough the whole audio book, even if I had to g..Mehr anzeigen »rind my teeth at some places and it nearly had me dnf at the very beginning.For one: In Bavaria, even back in these days: Bratwurst and Beer was not was eaten on most days - it was eaten, but not as a diet - I'm pretty sure about that. "Bummerl" was as far as I know a dog, not a horse. And it is not pronounced "Bume-rel" - but more on that later.But I endured. Even if I felt the characters were a bit flat and not much fleshed out. There were also major jumps in time, so the chapters of Sisi's life - her first time fleeing from court - in which I was most interested in were only touched in a few short sentences. It is historical fiction - here would be the part where the author would have had really time to dive into Sisi's soul and mind. But she didn't and we only get repetitions about how much she hates court life. This is repeated again and again, but not much shown, just told. The audio book is very long, but we never really get to know "Sisi". That was what disappointed me most - nose to nose with the next part of my review:

A major "Ouch" for me as a german listener: Can the narrator please look up her pronunciations and train to say words right? It's not that hard. Youtube, german fans etc. In this day and age, there are many sources to get help with this. The narrators I work with all do that. And from a publishing house, I would expect an audio book with correctly pronounced phrases and names.Examples would be: The often repeated and oh so wrong pronounced "Bad Ischl" made me nearly throw my phone against a wall and only the fact that it was more expensive that the audio book stopped me. It is not pronounced "Badisch Hell". "Gackel" - in the first moment I didn't even understand what kind of strange word she said and I'm Bavarian - only as "Sisi" explained what kind of creature a "Gackel" was, did I get it. "Schlittschuhläufer" was completely garbled. I know it is a hard word, but as a narrator, can you please look it up and say it right? Pretty please?If this audio book was available in German - I would have returned this version and gotten myself the translation and this is something I usually never do.

I'm interested in Sisi and should have trusted my gut and gotten a book written by an Austrian or german and especially not an audio book in a different language. I will look further - and read some nonfiction until I find something else.